History
The mandate to set up and run the Swedish GBIF node was given in 2001 by the Swedish government, via the Swedish Research Council, to the Swedish Museum of Natural History (SMNH) situated in Stockholm. The Research Council holds the position as Head of Delegation of GBIF-Sweden. On 1 January 2011, GBIF-Sweden, formerly one of several independent international collaborations hosted by SMNH, became integrated into the Bioinformatics and Genetics Research Unit at the museum.
Mission
Vision: GBIF-Sweden should serve researchers, public authorities and others interested in biodiversity as the Swedish hub for information and international exchange of data on the biological diversity of the world.
The ambition of GBIF-Sweden is to continuously harvest and publicly present up-to-date biodiversity data hosted by Swedish institutions and government authorities to stakeholders around the world through the international GBIF portal, in accordance with Swedish commitments under the international GBIF agreement. Where appropriate, GBIF-Sweden also aims to accumulate information about Swedish biodiversity kept elsewhere in the world and provide it to Swedish stakeholders in an appropriate form. Finally, GBIF-Sweden aims to play a leading role in stimulating digitization efforts aimed at increasing the quantity and quality of content provided to GBIF from Swedish institutions.
Structure
GBIF-Sweden’s national network of data publishers includes more than a dozen major institutions in Sweden. GBIF-Sweden has a board of eight independent delegates, none of whom represent any of the organisations involved in the national network. This board is responsible to both the Swedish Research Council and the hosting institution (SMNH). In addition, an advisory board of eight publishers/users add to the foundation of decisions taken by the board and executed by the secretariat.
Funding
Funding for GBIF-Sweden is provided by the Swedish Research Council through a successful application assessed in competition with other Swedish research infrastructures. The current grant encompasses the five-year period 2012-2016.
The basic financial contribution to GBIF is provided by the Swedish Research Council.
